


Anita

by MelyndaR



Series: Auradon Social Services: Isle of the Lost Division [1]
Category: 101 Dalmatians (1961), Descendants (Disney Movies), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: "I am a planner, and I never cause a fuss over something unless I think the issue really can be fixed.”“And you intend to… fix people?” Ben asked cautiously.“I intend to help fix situations, so that the people in them might be made better for it,” Mrs. Radcliffe corrected carefully. “If you’ll let me.”
Relationships: Anita/Roger (101 Dalmatians), Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants)
Series: Auradon Social Services: Isle of the Lost Division [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854097
Comments: 4
Kudos: 218





	1. Anita's POV

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after D2, and it ignores what's set up in D3.

“Where has all the money gone from your design work, though?” Roger asked Anita, leaning over her shoulder to peer at the budget spreadsheet she was working on.

“To another designer, likely,” Anita replied a little drolly.

“You know I don’t know any more about fashion than what you tell me, but what one person is so popular that they’re sucking up the income of the whole industry? I think even I would’ve noticed that,” he informed her, annoyance at the edges of his tone as he returned to sitting at his piano.

“No one person in particular – you’re right, that’s not how it works –” she spun in her rolling chair to face her husband as he began to tinker on his piano. “But there are a few up-and-coming designers who are getting noticeably more attention these days. Like Evie Grimhilde, for example.” Roger shot her an almost incredulous look, and so Anita felt the need to continue. “I don’t mind, really I don’t. That’s how fashion works.” She rolled her eyes, quoting a television show. “’One day you’re in, and the next day you’re out.’ She’s good at what she does, and she deserves the recognition – and it’s brilliant representation for what the children on the Isle are capable of. However,” she sighed, turning back to look over the columns of numbers on her computer screen. “It may mean that I need to pick up another job soon. My fashion design takes up only as much time as a hobby might, these days.”

“That’s a big thing to say,” Roger remarked slowly, watching her carefully. “What would you do?”

Anita worried at her lip with her teeth, but her eye contact with her husband remained steady as she said, “You know I have ideas – if not for a _job,_ then for something that could be done to occupy my time for a bit.”

“I do indeed know that.” Roger smiled lopsidedly at her, a strand of his blond hair falling into his eyes. “You have many ideas. Which one are you thinking of now, my darling?”

“The children… from the Isle of the Lost. I know the king has put Evie Grimhilde in charge of selecting the next group of VKs to come here, but she has a business too right now, and I know what that means, and she’s doing _that alongside_ school, at maybe seventeen years old. I cannot imagine the stress she’s under trying to manage it all. I’m sure eventually she’ll get there, but… I doubt very much she’ll have everything organized by the time school starts in the new academic year.”

“What do you mean, ‘organized’?” Roger asked. “No one seemed to ‘organize’ anything when Miss Grimhilde and the other three came over; they just… came.”

“And that’s another thing!” Anita agreed a little sharply.

Roger raised his eyebrows, looking down at the piano keys with a strange little smirk flitting about his mouth as he muttered to himself, “Oh? Is it?”

For a soft-spoken woman, his wife was a wonder to behold when she became passionate about something, and he knew how to bring out that side of her better than most. From his place on the couch, Pongo gave Roger a rebuking look, but beside her mate, Perdita was watching Anita shrewdly. Not for the first time, Roger considered looking into purchasing the universal translator that King Ben used to communicate with the Radcliffe family’s dogs.

“Yes!” Anita continued on. “It is the beginning of summer vacation, and those poor four children are still at Auradon Prep, because it was either remain there, or go back to what remains of their families on the Isle of the Lost, and what sort of a choice is that? It turns the school into nearly as much a prison as the Isle was—”

“I’m sure _that’s_ a little dramatic.”

“Or send them back to the Isle, where they’ll either be tormented – or worse – for being good or the goodness that’s been instilled in them over the school year will be lost so that they can go back to fitting in. What good is actually being done them, then, if they’re constantly being asked to choose between a comfortable bed and decent food and having parents?”

“Am I to take it that you have an idea that will do away with the issue that upsets you so?”

“Of course I do.” Anita gave him a confidant look. “You know I don’t rave so unless I can do something about it.”

Which meant that he had seen his wife do a surprisingly great number of things since they’d met. “Of course not. And is this idea something that could occupy your time, like we were discussing?”

“I doubt it could permanently, but perhaps, yes, for a bit,” she replied, returning to her thoughtful seriousness of before.

“So, _are_ you going to do something about it?” Roger asked.

“I… don’t know. I’d like to, very much, but it does seem a bit… much to shove one’s ideas onto the king, of all people. Maybe I ought to… think it through a bit more before anything is said.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, returning to his attention to his piano as Anita went back to her budgeting. _Ah, well,_ Roger thought. _She would get there soon enough._ It might not be until the next quartet of VKs were in Auradon, but he fully believed she would get somewhere with her notions soon enough.

Pongo and Perdita looked at Anita, looked at each other, then left the couch, Perdita in one graceful leap, and Pongo a little slower, planting his front paws on the floor to stretch with a yawn before his backside came off the couch as well. Both dogs took their leashes from the pegs where they were hung by the front door and approached Anita expectantly.

“Oh, I get both of you now, do I?” Anita asked, shutting down her computer. “Is this your way of trying to occupy my time?” Perdita whined impatiently and nudged the leash into Anita’s hand. “Alright,” Anita stood. “I’m coming.”

Except the moment the two dogs got her outside, they didn’t just want to go for a normal walk. They led her all the way to the bus stop, onto a bus, and sat with their paws in her lap so that she couldn’t leave the bus until they were ready for her to. Once they were at the heart of Auradon. _She trusted them,_ Anita reminded herself even while gaining a worrying suspicion of where her dogs were taking her.

Her suspicions were proved correct when they pulled her all the way to the gate of the castle and barked until the gatekeeper acknowledged them by asking Anita, “Do you have an appointment with someone, ma’am?”

“Not exactly,” Anita admitted.

“Because I know,” the gatekeeper pointed to Pongo and Perdita that. “That their council meetings with the king are on Thursdays, and this is not a Thursday.”

“I know that. It’s only that they’re very insistent, you see. They can get this way sometimes. I’m afraid they think I have something of value to say to the king, and—”

“And if you do, you are very welcome to make an appointment a—”

“It’s alright,” a new voice said from behind Anita, and the familiarity of the voice made Anita’s eyes widen. “I can hear her now.” King Ben stepped into view with Lady Mal’s hand in his own, the gaze he was giving the gatekeeper polite even while it held a rebuke for the man. He turned to Anita to say with a polite smile, “If you would like to follow me?” He glanced down at the dogs, explaining, “My universal translator is in my office.”

“Certainly, your majesty,” Anita answered with a smile, following King Ben and Lady Mal to the doorway of the king’s office.

“I’m gonna go,” Lady Mal told her boyfriend with the strange sort of smile that she often wore when she felt like they were in the public eye, like she was afraid of revealing too much, or mis-stepping.

He nodded. “I’ll see you for dinner, then.” He kissed Lady Mal’s hand, and the girl hurried away while the king let himself, Anita, and the dogs into his office. “Are you Mrs. Radcliffe?” King Ben asked, sitting behind his desk and pulling out of a drawer what could’ve been a hearing aid.

He nudged a small slide on the edge of it upward to turn it on and settled it into his ear as Anita nodded. “I am, your majesty.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you; I’ve heard great things about you,” he said with a smile, gesturing to one of the brown chairs across from his desk. “Please, sit.”

Anita did so, and Pongo and Perdita sat, straight and proud – almost as if they were at attention – on either side of the chair.


	2. Ben's POV

“What can I do for you today?” Ben asked, looking between Mrs. Radcliffe, Pongo, and Perdita as he wasn’t exactly sure who he was supposed to be holding a conversation with.

“Well, your majesty, to be entirely honest, they rather… led me here,” Mrs. Radcliffe admitted, gesturing between her two dogs.

She was clearly not used to the use of universal translators, which gave animals, mythical creatures, and even simply non-English-speaking peoples the ability to be an equal part of any conversation with the wearer of such a device. Ben decided he didn’t mind; this was clearly not a woman who meant to be impolite.

“Oh?” he asked, expectantly turning his gaze to the dalmatians.

“Anita has an idea,” Pongo began.

Perdita started again, though, saying more helpfully, “Do you remember how, when Genie asked you when the next quartet of VK would be brought to Auradon, you said that choosing the remaining members out of the four was taking longer than you’d anticipated, so you weren’t certain?”

“Yes.”

“Anita would like to help,” Pongo began where his mate had left off. “She’s a fashion designer; she knows the stress Miss Grimhilde is under trying to do everything, and it’s anyone’s guess how many things you and Lady Mal have to balance, and she wants to help in a couple of different ways. One of which is to be a, what I believe would be a slightly more… impartial, person to help sort out what VKs ought to be allowed into Auradon. After all, ‘her’ villain’s son is already here, so she has nothing to fear in that particular department now.”

“That’s true,” Ben said. He wasn’t sure that her help was needed in choosing the next four, exactly, but Pongo had said that there were _two_ ways Mrs. Radcliffe wanted to help, so he flicked his gaze back up to her, saying, “Pongo and Perdita were telling me you would be willing to help sort out what VKs we ought to allow in Auradon?”

She glanced down at Perdita, something like worry and rebuke flashing in her eyes as she muttered almost to herself, “I thought that’s what this was about.” Then she straightened and met his gaze with a confidence Ben wasn’t convinced she felt, her hands folding primly in her lap. “I would be willing, yes, if the assistance was useful. Which is not to say that I think the process has gone badly in the past, just that you’re all very busy people, and I thought some of you might appreciate someone who was willing to help shoulder part of your burden.”

“Maybe we would,” Ben agreed thoughtfully, but it wasn’t a statement that he meant to give any sort of permission with, and Mrs. Radcliffe clearly understood that. He raised his eyebrows, saying, “Pongo said you had more than one idea of how you might help?”

“Help the children from the Isle of the Lost, you mean?” she asked for clarification.

“Yes,” Pongo barked, realizing he hadn’t made himself clear, so Ben nodded at Mrs. Radcliffe.

“Well,” Mrs. Radcliffe hesitated before she admitted, still keeping eye contact even though Ben suspected it might be getting even more difficult for her now. “It’s… the children of the Isle that are here already, and the ones that will be coming, when school is not in session, like now, over the summer and on holidays, where do they go?”

“They stay with my family in our castle.”

“And will you still be able to house them all when there are eight of them?” she asked, frank now, but still carefully respectful. “Or twelve or twenty-four?” Ben wasn’t sure how to answer that, and it must’ve shown on his face before he smoothed his expression back into one of pleasant neutrality, because Mrs. Radcliffe continued almost gently, “And, anyway, is being kept up in the king’s castle the same as having a—a real, proper family to come home to, one that considers you… as good as a child of their own? Will it be good enough at Christmas, or on their birthday, or… or on Mother’s or Father’s Day?”

“Mal is a part of my family,” Ben said, careful to keep his tone confidant, and to keep his annoyance at bay… because he really wasn’t sure what to do with some of the issues that she was putting forth. “And Jay, Evie, and Carlos are some of my best friends.”

“And that is marvelous for all of you, as peers, as people in the same age group, to have one another, but…” she hesitated again, her tone turning gentle now as she said, “But you are not the same as a parent, not to any of them. Are you?”

Ben shook his head. Of course he wasn’t. “My parents treat Mal like a daughter. They consider her their daughter already.”

“And for her, that is wonderful. But the others, and those to come, who do they have? Fairy Godmother? She’s a truly magical woman, but even she must have her limits, and she’ll be run ragged trying to manage a school and Auradon’s magic, and however many children come over from the Isle.”

Ben swallowed, feeling suddenly _horrible_ as he realized that he had never actually asked Jay, Evie, or Carlos about their feelings towards any of this. He had always just understood that they took the term “parents” to mean bad things and given them Christmas and birthday parties at the castle without a second thought. But Mrs. Radcliffe was right; his family couldn’t do that for every VK that came to Auradon, especially if they meant to pick up the pace on bringing kids over. He certainly didn’t know how to approach the topic of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day with them; he wasn’t sure _they_ even knew how to approach such days.

He looked to Mrs. Radcliffe with a growing solemnity in his eyes, asking, “Do you have an idea of how to help them with that, then?”

Mrs. Radcliffe nodded. “Let me see if I can find families who would be willing to take them in – like I said, as their own – whenever school’s out, and maybe even on the weekends. I think it would help the VKs in some way emotionally, especially to have someone in Auradon who feels more like a parent to them than a teacher, and just…” she shrugged ever so slightly. “To experience what it’s like to have _good parents_.”

“I can agree with that.” Ben nodded readily, even smiling when she put it like that. “But I’m going to stress again that Mal doesn’t need that; my parents very much consider her their own now.”

“And I’m glad to hear it, your majesty,” Mrs. Radcliffe said, relaxing slightly now.

“But I think I would be glad to hear your suggestions for the others, if you have suggestions already, and _if_ Evie, Jay, and Carlos are interested in hearing them, too.”

“Actually, I think I do have suggestions for each of your friends already, your majesty.”

Now the look Ben gave her was impressed as he remarked approvingly, “You came prepared.”

“Not particularly,” Mrs. Radcliffe demurred. “But I am a planner, and I never cause a fuss over something unless I think the issue really can be fixed.”

“And you intend to… fix people?” Ben asked cautiously.

“I intend to help fix situations, so that the people in them might be made better for it,” Mrs. Radcliffe corrected carefully. “If you’ll let me.”

“Alright,” Ben nodded slowly, and this time, for this part of what she’d suggested she could do his gesture was meant to give her the go-ahead. “Let me call my friends, and we’ll see what they think about all of this and go from there.”

Mrs. Radcliffe smiled fully at him now, for perhaps the first time since he’d encountered her talking to his gatekeeper. “That sounds lovely, your majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the start of a series, and I still have the notes and outlines on the series, but my inspiration for it has stalled, so for the moment, I'm going to just leave this here as is.


End file.
